The Middle East

Iranian politics

AS HASSAN Rohani, Iran’s president, was visiting the north-western town of Ardabil on August 19th, one of his ministers, Reza Faraji-Dana, was impeached for “leading universities towards extremism”. Hardliners pushed through a no-confidence vote against the science minister, whose responsibilities include higher education, by a tight 145 to 110 votes.

Hardliners have long been hostile to Mr Rohani’s push for gentle reforms, but this is the first time they have so publically undermined him.

Syria's war

A YEAR ago today, August 21st, a chemical attack on Ghouta, an area on the outskirts of Damascus, left hundreds dead (the exact death toll has never been ascertained). Careful piecing together of the evidence by observers, including Elliot Higgins on his Brown Moses blog, established that the attack, using sarin gas, was carried out by government forces—a claim still denied by the regime in Damascus. In response to a threat of American strikes in retaliation, Bashar Assad, Syria's president, agreed to dispose of the country's chemical weapons. On August 19th American officials said they had completed the destruction of Syria's most lethal substances.

Yemen

IS A showdown brewing in Yemen? On August 17th the Houthis, a Shia rebel group based in northern Yemen, issued an ultimatum to the government in Sana'a. Yemen’s president, they said, had five days to cut fuel prices and dissolve the government—or face a rerun of the 2011 revolution that unseated his predecessor. The Houthis have long been unhappy about being ruled by central authorities in Sana'a and accuse the current government of being ineffective. But their demands for change have grown louder since they helped Yemen's security forces to rout tribal and Islamist militias, as well as a rogue unit of the army, from Amran province in July.

Foreigners in Lebanon

WITH only the clothes on her back and a toothbrush in her pocket, Mariney, a Mexican-American NGO worker, flew from Beirut to Cyprus in April. It was a routine visa run made by many expatriates in Lebanon before the expiry of their two-month “tourist" visas, which are free on arrival. But when Mariney was clearing customs, security officials told her she would not be allowed to return to Lebanon.

Two months earlier Mariney’s employer, a Chicago-based human rights organisation, had started the paperwork to get Mariney a work visa.

Child labour in Morocco

MOROCCO’S children have had a better lot since King Mohammed VI succeeded his father as ruler 15 years ago. More that 88% finish primary school, up from 62% at the end of King Hassan’s reign in 1999. Children’s rights organisations have proliferated and the government often funds their projects.

Rural children have benefited in particular. Better transport and boarding facilities for those from far-flung villages have made schools easier to reach. Since 2008 the education ministry has given satchels with pens and exercise books to millions starting primary school. Modest cash allowances for parents of pupils have helped win over families.

Iraq's water

IRAQ depends on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for drinking water, supplying industry and irrigating massive swathes of farmland. The two rivers account for 98% of the country’s surface water. Until recently the government’s greatest concern has been the fact that the source of neither river is in the country. In the past few decades dams and diversions across Turkey and Syria have steadily reduced the quantity of water reaching Iraq.

Now Iraq has a greater concern. Both waterways flow through areas of northern Iraq controlled by the Islamic State (IS), an extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq and today claims an area the size of Jordan straddling Syria and Iraq.

Al-Qaeda in Yemen

IN APRIL Yemen’s government declared all out war on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the local franchise of the jihadist movement. Aerial attacks, allegedly supported by unmanned American drones, on training camps and AQAP positions in the south of the country were followed by a ground campaign. Days after the initial airstrikes the government claimed the offensive had decimated the group’s ability to plan, train for and execute operations of the kind that left 52 civilians dead in December after a day-long siege of the defence ministry compound in Sana’a.

Lebanon and the Islamic State

ON AUGUST 7th only a few vehicles could be seen leaving the besieged town of Arsal on Lebanon’s border with Syria: tanks ferrying exhausted, chain-smoking Lebanese soldiers, microbuses packed with refugees and ambulances escorted by Lebanese army intelligence men. Two Syrian government warplanes circled ominously over the surrounding hills.

For almost a week Arsal, a Lebanese Sunni Muslim town whose residents have deep ties to Syria's rebels, has been under the control of jihadists from Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, and the Islamic State, an even more extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Israel and the Palestinians

DURING Israel’s last Gaza offensive in November 2012 we ran a brief statistical summary to illuminate some aspects of the conflict. As Israel and Hamas take a breather from fighting a month after Israel’s launch of Operation Protective Edge, it seems like a good moment to take note again of some salient numbers:

1. Population of Israel: 8.16m [Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics]

2. Population of Gaza: 1.76m [Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics]

3. GDP per person of Israel in dollars: $38,000 [Wikipedia]

4. GDP per person of Gaza in dollars: $876 [Washington Institute for Near East Studies, 2010 figure]

Iran's foreign policy

RECENT efforts by Iran’s rulers to define—or to redefine—their foreign policy are puzzling foreign analysts seeking to fathom whether a new direction is being taken. The foreign minister, Muhammad Javad Zarif, recently went on YouTube to stress his desire for a nuclear deal with the West, yet he could not resist citing his country’s “250 years of non-aggression” across the region. The supreme guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, continues to express unremitting bile towards the West, especially the United States; on July 29th he accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza.

Iraq's Yazidis

THE Iraqi and American authorities are rushing to arrange airdrops of food and water to the Yazidis as tens of thousands of followers of the secretive religion flee fundamentalist gunmen who took over the Iraqi town of Sinjar on August 3rd. A Yazidi elder reached by phone said they were trying to climb high enough into the nearby mountains that members of the Islamic State would not follow.

The Islamic State, an extremist group that operates in Iraq and Syria, took over the northern town of Mosul in June before streaking across Iraq.

Media in Iran

FOR Jason Rezaian, the Iran correspondent of the Washington Post and his wife Yeganeh Salehi, herself a journalist, the knock on the door came on July 22nd. Security men took them away and, almost two weeks later, they and a photographer for the American newspaper are still in custody. Nobody knows what they are accused of and family members have received no information about their whereabouts. On August 4th the case became murkier when it was reported that the caretaker of Mr Rezaian's building died after being tasered by Revolutionary Guards when he asked to see an arrest warrant.

Gaza

THIRD time lucky? A Palestinian delegation is heading to Cairo to discuss terms for a long-term ceasefire after 24 days of fighting which has left 1,400-plus Palestinians and at least 65 Israelis dead. Twice in six years, Israelis and Palestinians have negotiated an end to the fighting under Egyptian auspices. But each time the ceasefire has collapsed, as Gaza’s neighbours incrementally tightened an initial easing of the blockade and fighting between Israel’s forces and Gaza’s militant factions resumed.